


REM

by assassinslover



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 07:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1297036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassinslover/pseuds/assassinslover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the please that does her in, in the end. She can't think of a time when she's heard Moriarty use it in a manner that's anything but condescending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	REM

_rapid eye movement - n: rapidly shifting, continuous movements of the eyes beneath closed lids during the stage of sleep characterized by dreaming._

 

The first time Joan dreams about Moriarty, she wakes up in a cold sweat with her heart pounding hard against her chest. Her room is dark, the brownstone quiet. The only sound is her breathing, loud and harsh. After a few seconds she remembers nothing about the dream, except the blue of Moriarty's eyes. She slumps back down and pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing heavily. It takes ten minutes for her to fall back asleep.

Sherlock easily catches on when she slouches into the kitchen the next morning, practically gasping for a cup of coffee, but surprisingly remains silent. Joan's well aware of her tangled hair, and though her skin is scrubbed fresh of her night sweat, the shower didn't hide the dark circles under her eyes.

The image of Moriarty's sharp gaze stays with her the whole day, as she lounges in an armchair with her laptop on her knees, practically drip-feeding herself caffeine, and checking her online dating profile for any hits. Only one appeals to her at all. She refuses to acknowledge that it is because his eyes are the same blue as the ones that haunt her thoughts. He's eager to set up a date, and after they've agreed on a time and location, Joan shuts her laptop with a sigh that feels too much like resignation and not enough like hopeful excitement. She finishes her coffee and goes to feed Clyde.

The week passes with boredom and one run of the mill murder case that the precinct doesn't even need to call her and Sherlock to consult on, which does absolutely nothing to scratch whatever investigative itch he constantly seems to have. He spends his time on the roof tending to his bees, and Joan reads and browses the internet, and has thankfully dreamless sleeps. Or at least dreams free of Moriarty and her heavy eyes.

 

Her reprieve doesn't last. The second dream is just as vague, and just as easily forgotten, but this time, when Joan is staring up at the ceiling trying to bring her breathing back down to a reasonable pace and wiping moisture off her brow and cheeks, there's laughter echoing in her ears. She digs the heels of her palms into her eyes and flops back with a sigh. A moment later she notices that at some point in the night Sherlock decided to deposit Clyde in her bed. She watches the turtle slowly clambering over her legs, and doesn't move until he's clear on the other side of the mattress.

She goes out to do the shopping, leaving Sherlock attempting to increase the amount of time he can hold his breath. There's no pre-date jitters. She doesn't even remember she has it until she sees the note sketched into her planner while she's mulling over her morning coffee. She carries her basket from aisle to aisle, depositing the few things they need in it.

At the checkout, she looks up from rummaging in her purse to find that her cashier has blue eyes and blonde hair and despite being a decade and a half too young at least, Joan sees another face before her, and nearly drops her card. Through a façade of awkward professionalism, unsettled by her staring, the girl bags her food and hands her her receipt.

Joan tells herself she's being ridiculous, but her heart races and the uneasy twist in her stomach stays with her even after she's put the groceries away, and when she notices the trembling of her hands, she tells herself it's just pre-date jitters.

 

His name is Antony or Anthony or something, but in two seconds he's insisting that Joan calls him Tony, so it doesn't make any difference either way. He's friendly enough, and has an easy charm about him, and when he smiles his teeth are slightly crooked, and it should be more endearing than anything else, but all Joan can think about is bright white teeth in a smug smirk and shining blue eyes. He asks what she does, and Joan finds herself awkwardly explaining again that _yes_ she lives with another man and _no_ he's not her brother and _no_ they most certainly are not in a relationship that's more than strictly platonic, and _no_ seeing dead bodies doesn't bother her as much as it probably should.

“Can we do this again?” he asks after, having insisted he pay for dinner, and smiling at her again even though a sharp breeze is making him shiver. Joan shrinks into her coat. The sensible answer would be yes, but Joan isn't feeling particularly sensible, so she gives him a maybe, she'll have to see with work, and they exchange numbers and part with a bristly kiss placed on Joan's cheek.

 

“Well?” Sherlock asks when she's shrugging out of her coat.

“Well what?” she asks as she hangs it up and unwinds her scarf from around her neck.

“Your date,” Sherlock clarifies, sauntering out into the hall with his hands shoved into his pockets. “You're home early, so I assume it was less than satisfactory. Was he too fat? Ugly? You didn't like the way he ate his food?”

“It went fine, thank you,” Joan replies purposefully, giving him a stare. She sighs. “There just wasn't any... spark, you know?”

“No,” Sherlock replies simply. “Unless you were expecting him to pass a current of static electricity from his body to yours.” Joan opens her mouth to reply, then snaps her jaw back shut and shakes her head, and bends to pull her heels off.

 

She tries to figure out why she's been dreaming of Moriarty of all people, and eventually comes to the conclusion that it doesn't matter, and that her mind decides to pick that face out of the millions she's seen simply because it's more familiar to her than most. She ignores the sweating, the tingling at the back of her neck, and manages to convince herself that given another week or so she'll be back to dreaming about baseball and lunch with her mother, and occasionally the patient she had lost.

It would be easier if she could remember them.

She gets her with a week later, and when she wakes up drenched and panting and aching, she immediately wishes she hadn't. There's no images in her mind, but she can  _feel_ , and she can hear the echo of her name in Moriarty's voice, and that's even worse. She glances at the door, and glances at her clock, paranoid, but it's too early even for Sherlock to wake her, so she flings her arm over her eyes and shoves her hand into her pants, and in the haze that comes after, she pretends that she wasn't thinking about Moriarty's hands on her thighs and her dark eyes boring into Joan's own.

 

Sherlock wakes her up two hours later by throwing a file onto her chest and announcing that there's been a murder, and for once Joan is grateful for the early hour, and the distraction that a homicide will provide. It's a simple enough case, though the lack of some important evidence has been giving the police a hard time, but it's enough while it lasts. Sherlock keeps her up so late that when she does crawl into bed there are no dreams, but the second the case is closed and she dozes off with her glasses on her nose and a book on her chest, Moriarty returns like an annoying itch that Joan can't reach.

She sits at Sherlock's side at their next interrogation like she always does, holding onto the files they've collected while he fires off question after question, leading them towards the inevitable conclusion of the subject sitting across from them, suddenly looking very pale, giving them the confession they seek. He sends her sidelong glances, the light furrow of his brow the only sign that he's caught onto her unusual behaviour.

“What's wrong?” he asks when he shuts the door behind them, a hand on her elbow guiding her to an out of the way place against the wall before dropping and disappearing into his pocket. Joan shrugs and pinches the top of her nose, rubbing the corners of her eyes.

“I'm just tired,” she says, and it's true, but the look in Sherlock's eyes tells her that he knows it isn't the whole truth, but he doesn't have time to press her for the rest before Marcus finds them and the conversation is turned away from Joan and back to the case.

“That's not our guy,” he says. “His alibi checks out. Looks like we're back to square one.” He gives them half a smile and shrugs, and turns away. Joan watches as two officers lead their now innocent suspect down the hall. She pays more attention to how she acts around Sherlock, determined to keep him from snooping and figuring out the real reason why she's acting so oddly.

 

In her dream, they're sitting at dinner, in the fancy restaurant where Moriarty had taken her before Joan had solved her.

“I underestimated you,” she says, and when she smiles, there's blood in her teeth. Joan wakes herself up with half a shout choked in her throat, and doesn't sleep the rest of the night. She's safe, she thinks, squeezing her eyes shut. Moriarty can't get to them any more.

It's a lie.

The text comes first, and Joan isn't even a little bit surprised that Moriarty managed to get her phone number.  _I'm in town,_ it says,  _and I would be pleased if you would grace me with your company – JM._ She ignores it, but can't delete it. Her finger hovers over the button for so long the screen goes black, and when she unlocks her phone again, she finds herself staring at the words until the sound of Sherlock starting up with his single stick breaks her out of her trance. She does delete the message, then, and shoves her phone back into her sweater.

She receives another later that night when she's curled up on a chair reading.  _I won't hurt you if that's what you're afraid of. I only want to talk. - JM._ Joan sighs, deletes it, and goes back to her reading, but suddenly her focus is elsewhere, and she remembers her dreams. Moriarty's eyes, her laugh, her voice purring Joan's name. Hands pushing her legs apart. She shakes her head and softly scolds herself. She knows she should tell Sherlock, but something stops her, and that's more concerning than all her dreams combined.

 

Sherlock doesn't say anything, but he has to know. Joan imagines that he's been keeping as close of tabs as he can to Moriarty's whereabouts, and she knows they're still in contact, even though the letters they trade are his and his alone and, in Joan's opinion, utterly foolish, and completely beyond any reasonable comprehension. Then again, she supposes that Moriarty, or at least “Irene” has always been Sherlock's weak spot, and she satisfies his need for higher intellectual conversation in a way that even Joan isn't able to provide. The texts keep coming, at least once a day, then twice, then she receives a call when she's on a scene with Sherlock, and it takes all of her will to keep her face neutral as she purposefully ignores it.

 

“She's out,” Sherlock says one night when he's at the table eating and Joan is cleaning up her plate. She tries to act like she didn't already know, hoping that the pause as she washes her plate is taken as shock at the news.

“For how long?” she asks, not who, because there will only ever be one “she”, and puts her plate to the side to dry.

“Several weeks, I imagine. She has not made any effort to contact me, though I don't doubt that she remains in the city.”

“Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?” Joan replies, and is grateful that she has her back turned, and can hide the guilty flush that spreads over her cheeks. Sherlock hums non-committally just as Joan's phone pings in her pocket.

“You've received an alarmingly large amount of texts recently,” Sherlock says. His fork scrapes against the plate hard enough to make Joan wince. “Should I be concerned?”

“No, of course not. Why are you paying attention to how many texts I get, anyway?” She dries the dishes with shaking hands, her phone weighing heavily.

“I pay attention to a great many things, Watson. It's in my nature.”

“Okay, well, however many texts I receive and who they're from really isn't any of your business.” She doesn't mean her tone to be so sharp. Sherlock turns around and gives her a strange look, one that says he knows exactly who has been blowing up Joan's phone, but stays quiet. She should just be honest with him, but somehow it feels like a betrayal to Moriarty, so she keeps her mouth shut and leaves him to clean his own dishes, retreating to her room. She barely glances at the text before deleting it.

 

_I'm leaving tomorrow. I wish to see you. Please. - JM._ It's the please that does her in, in the end. She can't think of a time when she's heard Moriarty use it in a manner that's anything but condescending. She texts back, short and sweet.  _Where,_ she asks, and drops her phone as if it's burned her. The reply is almost instant.  _There is a coffee house near the brownstone, if I'm not mistaken. Will you meet me there in the morning?_ Joan says yes, and as soon as the message has been sent, all of the nervous anticipation and jitters she should have felt before her date with Tony comes flooding in so quickly she almost wants to be sick. 

Sherlock can never know, she thinks, tossing and turning beneath her blankets and watching as the minutes tick by painfully slowly, but he probably already does.

 

She's hardly slept at all by the time her alarm blares at seven, and the fact that it's that and not Sherlock waking her up is testament enough to Sherlock's mood that Joan almost decides not to go, but then she remembers Moriarty's “please,” and rolls out of bed. She showers and rubs sleep from her eyes, and dresses far too nicely for something that is most certainly not a date. She thinks of Moriarty's bloody smile and has to grip onto the sink to keep from being sick.

Sherlock is sleeping in one of the chairs when she goes downstairs to get her coat. She pauses with her hand over the hook, then crosses into the room and gently covers him with a blanket before she leaves. The shop is close enough that it won't draw Sherlock's suspicion if he wakes up before she returns, but far enough that she supposes Moriarty feels safe enough to meet her there. She looks for a sign of the sleek black car that had picked her up the last time, but there's nothing. She can't find Moriarty, either, until her eyes pass twice over a woman in a corner, reading the paper and sipping tea.

It's the casual clothes that put her off. She looks more like Irene than Moriarty, and Joan has to firmly remind herself that there _is_ no Irene, and firmly keeps her guard up as she strides over to the table and stands before it. Moriarty's eyes flick across the rest of the article she's reading, then she neatly folds the paper and sets it aside. When she finally looks up, it's all Joan can do to keep breathing. Her eyes are more brilliant than Joan remembers. Moriarty pushes the chair by Joan out with her foot, and with a small smile and a wordless gesture, bids her sit.

“You wanted to talk,” Joan says when she does, setting her bag at her feet, “so talk.”

“So wonderful to see you again, too, Joan,” Moriarty replied, and when she pours a fresh cup of tea from the pot and reaches for the sugar, Joan can see the scars on her wrists. If Moriarty notices her staring, she doesn't comment. “I trust you've been well.”

“Tell me what you want.” Moriarty smiles again, close-mouthed, and it doesn't reach her eyes. She looks tired, Joan notices. There are shadows under her eyes she's tried to hide with make up, and a faint line between her brows.

“The pleasure of your company, of course,” she says, her smile falling.

“You're just echoing a conversation back at me,” Joan snaps. Moriarty's eyes narrow just slightly.

“Tea?” she asks. “I promise it's perfectly safe.” Her voice is almost gentle, and that alone is enough for Joan to manage a stiff nod. “Sugar? Honey? Cream? You like your tea with cream, don't you, Joan?”

“Yes,” Joan says, and doesn't think about how Moriarty knows that. Moriarty reaches across to flip Joan's cup over and fills it smoothly, and adds two creamers. Joan stirs it herself, keeping her gaze on the woman across from her. She waits, wanting to see what Moriarty says to explain her sudden, although inevitable, reappearance. Moriarty just watches, steadily, until Joan can hardly hold her gaze any more.

“I'm glad you agreed to meet me,” Moriarty finally says.

“You did say please,” Joan replies, sarcasm thickly lacing her tone. Moriarty's lips twitch into half a smile.

“Is that all it takes to get you to do what I want? A please?” Joan blushes and tries to hide it behind her teacup, but Moriarty sees. A pleased look flashes across her face.

“When do you leave?”

“Tonight.”

“Where are you going?” Moriarty's smile changes into something smug and just shy of mocking.

“Why?” she asks. “Are you going to tell Sherlock? Your friends in the police? I'm a free woman, Joan Watson.”

“And how exactly did you manage that?” Joan asks, and doesn't bother to hide the barbs in her voice. Moriarty chuckles.

“I trade in information, my dear. Give enough of it away and I can have whatever I like.” She sighs lightly, settling back in her seat and folding her fingers together on the table edge. “If you must know, I'll be in Brussels. Did you plan on joining me?”

“No, of course not.” Moriarty's teeth glance across her lip. It's uncharacteristic, and makes the hair on the back of Joan's neck prickle.

“And if I said please?” she asks, almost a whisper. Joan has to strain her ears to hear over the hum of noise in the building. “You are a fascinating woman, Joan. You intrigue me in a way that no one ever has, aside from Sherlock, of course, but I know his game, and I'm bored of it. I meant to give you more time to consider, but you resolutely ignored my messages.”

“Listen, Irene, or Moriarty, or whatever your name is-”

“Jamie,” Moriarty says. There's something in her voice that Joan can't read; some emotion that seems alien coming from a woman such as her, and with it Joan feels her throat constrict. She didn't want to know, but now that she does, she feels like she's privy to some great secret. She supposes for someone in Moriarty's line of work, a simple thing like a name is just that. She shifts in her seat and clears her throat, uncomfortable.

“Jamie,” she says, and it feels odd on her tongue, “I'm not going to sit here and let you make a game out of my life.”

“You're just as interested as I am,” Moriarty replies. “Don't try to fool yourself. Otherwise, why would you be sitting here?” Joan isn't sure if she wants to slap her or kiss her, and of the two doesn't know which is more disturbing. Moriarty smirks, and Joan remembers her dream, remembers those sharp eyes burning her skin, and that infuriating twist of Moriarty's lips vanishing between Joan's thighs. “You think you know me. You don't, I can say that with every confidence. I can also say you want to. I'm giving you an opportunity.”

“I'm not going to run off with you to Brussels.”

“Aren't you?” Moriarty asks in a way that sounds like she's sure Joan is going to do exactly that.

“No,” Joan says firmly. She feels like she's trying to convince herself rather than Moriarty. She can't. She couldn't, wouldn't, leave Sherlock just like that. She steadfastly ignores that that's her number one concern, not the possibility that she's even slightly entertaining the idea of running off with an extremely dangerous criminal mastermind.

“Well,” Moriarty says after a moment, smoothly getting to her feet and collecting her coat, “there's no convincing you, I suppose. You're an enormously strong-willed woman, after all.” She flips her hair and leaves money on the table before shrugging her coat over her shoulders. “However, if you do change your mind, you'll find the number you saved in your phone a fairly reliable way to contact me.”

She smiles, properly, and when she shows her teeth they're white and bright, without a hint of red.

 


End file.
